Season’s first mackerel to Vopnafjördur

Faxi RE arrived at Vopnafjördur Wednesday night with around 200 tonnes of mackerel on board, making this the first mackerel landing of the summer. According to skipper Hjalti Einarsson, the fish were caught in four hauls off the south-east coast.

‘We started fishing off the Öræfa Shallows and finished off Stokksnes. Most of our time at sea went into steaming or dodging through the endless bad weather we’ve had off the east coast. Faxi was the only one looking for mackerel on those grounds so we can’t say we have much of a picture of how the fish are distributed. We know that there are mackerel there and the small boat fishermen have seen mackerel on the surface close in,’ he said.

Faxi’s fish went to production last night at the pelagic factory in Vopnafjördur and factory manager Magnús Róbertsson said that a team of 25 make up the production team.

‘There will be a staff of 120 to 130 when the fleet is all fishing mackerel. Although there wasn’t a large amount this time, the season looks good. This is good-quality mackerel from 370 to 420 grammes and with a 20% fat content. The fish have been feeding and that’s why we decided to put this through H&G production instead of wholefreezing them,’ he said.

As well as Faxi, Venus NS and Lundey NS will be fishing for mackerel this summer, while Ingunn AK has been sold to VSV in the Westmann Islands.